This Article is From Jun 06, 2009

Swine flu to stay in India?

Swine flu to stay in India?
New Delhi:

Patients infected with H1N1 virus are being kept isolated behind the walls, but the virus can't be locked in. It now seems to have a permanent home in India.

So far, those infected are people who travelled to pandemic sites like the USA, but epidemiologists say these cases though cured have brought the virus to the country and indigenous cases are expected to come up once summer ends.

And when they do, they will be harder to trace because the cases will surface within communities and spread rapidly. At least 30 million people in this country are migrants and can spread the virus.

"The virus is dormant because it is summer. Flu surveillance shows that this is usually the case and once it gets cooler, the virus returns and we expect it to resurface in a big way. In case it has re-assorted itself and mixed with the seasonal virus then it can get virulent. In India we have three viruses in circulation - the avian flu among poultry, the seasonal virus and this novel virus. And if they mix, then we won't be prepared," said Dr Randeep Guleria, Professor of Medicine in AIIMS.

Screening and testing facilities are in place but they will not be of any use once the virus appears within the community. The only way to control a pandemic is through surveillance.

"We have put helplines right up to the district level, but surveillance officers are being trained to report clusters of cases, whatever they come across," said Dr Shashi Khare, Microbiologist, NICD.

The flu season starts in October. But what is worrying virologists is the possibility of the new virus mutating into a more virulent strain and if that happens, the pandemic will be hard to control.

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